Still coping with sneaky headaches

Man these headaches are irritating. I hope the ENT can “fix them” when I see him on Thursday.

Yesterday was my rheumatology appointment. After my friend Jennifer’s story about Moronica, I went to my appointment and crossed my fingers, hoping I wouldn’t have to see a fellow. My appointment was at 10am and my father dropped me off at around 9am. To kill some time, I took the hospital shuttle bus to Toronto General Hospital to pick up a new (and unbroken) wand for my bleach bottle for dialysis, and also to drop off the pager bill for my kidney pager at the transplant office. I grabbed a tea at the Tim Hortons, then got on the shuttle bus to go back to Toronto Western hospital. The ride is about 5-7 minutes.

I got there pretty much just in time and was pretty impressed with myself. I sat down and listened to my iPod, all the while avoiding eye contact with those people who want to do research studies. I have no problem with research studies, but most of the time the studies are much more involved than I am able to get…ie. you must show up at the hospital 3 times a week for 3 months for an hour each time. Um..sorry, can’t do it.

Anyhow, I watched as people who arrived after me got seen by the doctor first. 10am turned to 11am. 11 am turned to 12pm.

The energy bar on my iPod was at the midway point as I hadn’t charged it the night before.

Finally, at 12:15, I got called in. Called in by a fellow.

Nuts.

Anyhow, the barrage of questions already in my chart began. I did my best not to be curt, but I was not only frustrated with being asked repeat questions, but I had just waited 2 hours and was tired and cranky.

I finally got the blood results from my LAST blood test I had back in March. No lupus flare. I suspected that, as I knew my rheumatologist, who is very much on the ball, would have called me near immediately if he had noticed anything outside of the norm.

The normal examination occured. My left hip and my right knee, which have always been jacked up, are especially jacked up nowadays. Stupid avascular necrosis. After about 45 minutes of questions and examinations, the fellow went to call my doctor. My doctor suggested that I stay on my 8mg dose of prednisone. I have very prone to flare up in the past when my prednisone was dropped too low, but at the same time, I’ve never been on a low dose of prednisone while on plaquinel. My rheumy just doesn’t want me to have a flare as that would definitely screw up transplant plans.

My rheumy also had his secretary book me MRIs for my left hip and right knee, as well as a referral to see the ortho doctor for my joints. I’m sure that’ll take a good few months. I’m sure I’ll get appointments for all three things in the two weeks I’m on vacation I was also instructed to get x-rays of my hips and knees, which I did. When all was said and done, it was after 2pm. Ugh. I went home and relaxed before going to nightschool.

Thankfully the prof showed up this time, even though she was about 20 minutes late. The person who was supposed to be our prof apparently isn’t our prof anymore. Oh well. She seems like a straight forward professor. What I didn’t understand is the fact that she arrived late, but let us leave an hour early, even though we were 1 class behind since nobody showed up for the first class on the 11th. She really sped through a lot of the material in an attempt to catch up. I just hope I do well…!